Trivia: Born Walter Willis -- an Army brat to parents stationed in Idar-Oberstein, West Germany -- on March 19, 1955, Bruce Willis grew up in New Jersey from the age of two. As a youngster, he developed a stutter that posed the threat of social alienation, but he discovered an odd quirk: while performing in front of large numbers of people, the handicap inexplicably vanished. This led Willis into a certified niche as a comedian and budding actor. After high-school graduation, 18-year-old Willis decided to land a blue-collar job in the vein of his father, and accepted a position at the DuPont Chambers Works factory in Deep Water, NJ, but withdrew, shaken, after a co-worker was killed on the job. He performed regularly on the harmonica in a blues ensemble called the Loose Goose and worked temporarily as a security guard before enrolling in the drama program at Montclair State University in New Jersey. A collegiate role in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof brought Willis back in touch with his love of acting, and he instantly decided to devote his life to the profession.Willis made his first professional appearances on film with minor roles in projects like The First Deadly Sin, starring Frank Sinatra, and Sidney Lumet's The Verdict. But his big break came when he attended a casting call (along with 3000 other hopefuls) for the leading role on Moonlighting, an ABC detective comedy series. Sensing Willis' innate appeal, producers cast him opposite the luminous Cybill Shepherd. The series, which debuted in 1985, followed the story of two private investigators working for a struggling detective agency, with Willis playing the fast-talking ne'er-do-well David Addison, and Shepherd playing the prim former fashion model Maddie Hayes. The show's heavy use of clever dialogue, romantic tension, and screwball comedy proved a massive hit with audiences, and Willis became a major star. The show ultimately lasted four years and wrapped on May 14, 1989. During the first year or two of the series, Willis and Shepherd enjoyed a brief offscreen romantic involvement as well, but Willis soon met and fell in love with actress Demi Moore, who became his wife in 1987.In the interim, Willis segued into features, playing geeky Walter Davis in the madcap 1987 comedy Blind Date. That same year, Motown Records -- perhaps made aware of Willis' experiences as a musician -- invited the star to record an LP of blue-eyed soul tracks. The Return of Bruno emerged and became a moderate hit among baby boomers, although as the years passed it became better remembered as an excuse for Willis to wear sunglasses indoors and sing into pool cues.Then in 1988, Willis broke major barriers when he convinced studios to cast him in the leading role of John McClane in John McTiernan's explosive action movie Die Hard. Though up until this point, action stars had been massive tough guys like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, execs took a chance on Willis' every-guy approach to the genre - and the gamble paid off. Playing a working-class cop who confronts an entire skyscraper full of terrorists when his estranged wife is taken hostage on Christmas Eve, Willis' used his wiseacre television persona to constantly undercut the film's somber underpinnings, without ever once damaging the suspenseful core of the material. This, coupled with a smart script and wall-to-wall sequences of spectacular action, propelled Die Hard to number one at the box office during the summer of 1988, and made Willis a full-fledged movie star.Willis subsequent projects would include two successful Die Hard sequels, as well as other roles the 1989 Norman Jewison drama In Country, and the 1989 hit comedy Look Who's Talking, in which Willis voiced baby Mikey. Though he'd engage in a few stinkers, like the unsuccessful Hudson Hawk and North, he would also continue to strike told with hugely popular movies like The Last Boyscout , Pulp Fiction, and Armageddon.Willis landed one of his biggest hits, however, when he signed on to work with writer/director M. Night Shyamalan in the supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense. In that film, Willis played Dr. Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist assigned to treat a young boy (Haley Joel Osment) plagued by visions of ghosts. The picture packs a wallop in its final minutes, with a now-infamous surprise that even purportedly caught Hollywood insiders off guard when it hit U.S. cinemas in the summer of 1999. Around the same time, tabloids began to swarm with gossip of a breakup between Willis and Demi Moore, who indeed filed for divorce and finalized it in the fall of 2000.Willis and M. Night Shyamalan teamed up again in 2000 for Unbreakable, another dark fantasy about a man who suddenly discovers that he has been imbued with superhero powers and meets his polar opposite, a psychotic, fragile-bodied black man (Samuel L. Jackson). The movie divided critics but drew hefty grosses when it premiered on November 22, 2000. That same year, Willis delighted audiences with a neat comic turn as hitman Jimmy the Tulip in The Whole Nine Yards, which light heartedly parodied his own tough-guy image. Willis followed it up four years later with a sequel, The Whole Ten Yards.In 2005, Willis was ideally cast as beaten-down cop Hartigan in Robert Rodriguez's graphic-novel adaptation Sin City. The movie was a massive success, and Willis was happy to reteam with Rodriguez again the next year for a role in the zombie action flick Planet Terror, Rodriguez's contribution to the double feature Grindhouse. Additionally, Willis would keep busy over the next few years with roles in films like Richard Donner's 16 Blocks, Richard Linklater's Fast Food Nation, and Nick Cassavetes' crime drama Alpha Dog. The next year, Willis reprised his role as everyman superhero John McClane for a fourth installment of the Die Hard series, Live Free or Die Hard, directed by Len Wiseman. Though hardcore fans of the franchise were not overly impressed, the film did expectedly well at the box office.In the latter part of the decade, Willis would keep up his action star status, starring in the sci-fi thriller Surrogates in 2009, but also enjoyed poking fun at his own persona, with tongue-in-cheek roles in action fare like The Expendables, Cop Out, and Red. He appeared as part of the ensemble in Wes Anderson's quirky Moonrise Kingdom and in the time-travel action thriller Looper in 2012, before appearing in a string of sequels -- The Expendables 2 (2012), A Good Day to Die Hard, G.I. Joe: Retaliation and Red 2 (all 2013) and Sin City: A Dame to Die For (2014).

Trivia: Perhaps the ultimate thinking man's sex symbol, Helen Mirren is also one of the most respected actresses of British stage, screen, and television. With classical training, years of work on the London stage, an acclaimed television series, and dozens of films to her name, Mirren has proven herself an actress of talent, versatility, and unforgettable presence.Born Ilynea Lydia Mironoff on July 26, 1945, in London, Mirren is a descendant of the White Russian nobility. Her father was a member of an aristocratic Russian military family who came to England during the Russian Revolution, but while Mirren was growing up, he worked in turn as a violinist with the London Philharmonic, a taxi driver, and a driving instructor. His daughter, on the other hand, knew her true calling by the age of six, when she realized she wanted to become an actress, in the "old-fashioned and traditional sense." After trying to please her parents with a stint at a teacher's college, Mirren joined the National Youth Theatre, where she first made her mark playing Cleopatra. The acclaim for her performance led the way to other work, and she was soon a member of the vaunted Royal Shakespeare Company, with whom she performed a wide range of classics. Her stage career thriving, Mirren made her screen debut in 1968 in the somewhat forgettable Herostratus. The same year, she made a more auspicious appearance as Hermia in Peter Hall's lauded adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and her screen career soon took off. She worked steadily throughout the late '60s and '70s, starring in 1969's Age of Consent and working with such directors as Robert Altman on The Long Goodbye (1973) and Lindsay Anderson on O Lucky Man! (also 1973). In 1977, Mirren earned permanent notoriety for her work in Caligula, a mainstream porn offering from the powers at Penthouse that also starred such notables as Peter O'Toole, John Gielgud, and Malcolm McDowell.During the subsequent decade, Mirren continued to work on the stage, and she also broadened her cinematic resumé and fan base with such films as Excalibur (1981) and Cal (1984). Her portrayal of an older woman in love with a younger man in the latter film earned her a Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival and further established her reputation as an actress willing to explore the kind of unconventional relationships often ignored on the screen. The actress' willingness go beyond safe conventionality was demonstrated with her work in such films as The Mosquito Coast (1986), Pascali's Island (1988), The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989), and The Comfort of Strangers (1991). She again took on the role of an older woman in love with a younger man in Where Angels Fear to Tread in 1991, proving that seven years after Cal, her powers of attraction had been in no way tempered by time.At the beginning of the 1990s, Mirren began appearing on the television series Prime Suspect. Her character, Jane Tennison, a hard-boiled detective, proved immensely popular with viewers and critics alike, and she stayed with the series for its seven incarnations. Mirren also continued to do acclaimed work for the stage and screen, earning a Cannes Best Actress award and Oscar and BAFTA nominations for her work in The Madness of King George in 1994, and making her Broadway debut in Turgenev's A Month in the Country in 1995. The following year, she earned further acclaim for her work in Some Mother's Son, in which she played the mother of a Belfast prison hunger striker. In 1997, Mirren found the time to marry producer/director Taylor Hackford before signing on to provide the voice of the Queen in the Disney animated film The Prince of Egypt (1998). In 1999, she played the titular teacher in Kevin Williamson's disappointing Teaching Mrs. Tingle, earning the only good reviews given the movie, and she again won over critics with her title role in the made-for-television The Passion of Ayn Rand, earning an Emmy for her performance. Back on the big screen, Mirren continued with a lighthearted role as a master gardener in Greenfingers (2000), turned up in director Hal Hartley's comic monster fable No Such Thing (2001) and earned her second Oscar nomination for her re-teaming with Altman in the director's acclaimed comedy Gosford Park (2001).This pattern solidified for Mirren as her career moved through the new millennium. She was well received for her performance in yet another quirky British sleeper in 2003, with Calendar Girls. In it she played a middle-aged woman who raises money (as well as eyebrows) for a Women's Institute by posing nude with her peers. She also made notable appearances in movies like the thriller The Clearing (2004) and the romantic comedy Raising Helen (2004), before awing audiences with a performance in Shadowboxer (2005) as an assassin who is diagnosed with terminal cancer. 2005 would prove to be a special year for Mirren as September of that year would kick off a full 12 months of nonstop praise and excitement. Two of Mirren's projects would emerge during this period that would usher her into the upper tier of cinema's lead actresses -- a place that critics and fans had known she belonged all along. Coincidentally, these two projects would find her playing two different English monarchs who shared the same name. First, her performance as Queen Elizabeth I in the BBC miniseries Elizabeth I aired in September 2005, blowing viewers away with her ability to convey the full power and command of perhaps the most important crowned head in British history, all while confined to the small screen. Immersing herself into the opulent 16th century costumes and sets, Mirren tackled the Virgin Queen as a leader, a woman, and a human being, leaving such an impression that the miniseries was later aired in the U.S. By September 2006, the commotion over Mirren's performance had died down just enough for her to make an even bigger splash with her acclaimed role as Queen Elizabeth II in Stephen Frears' film The Queen. Despite the shared name, playing the modern-day figure was as different from her earlier role as it could be. Taking place in 1997 after the death of the globally beloved Princess Diana -- whose divorce from Prince Charles had been a source of epic tabloid controversy -- The Queen found Mirren playing a monarch who wielded little-to-no executive power, but whose title derived all its meaning from tradition, symbolism, and national pride. Mirren handled this queen with gentle attention to detail, following her on confused journeys both personal and in the national consciousness, showing her surprise and bewilderment as the stoic exterior on which a queen's public face had always been built suddenly caused her to be reviled. Mirren's two Elizabeths were both honored with Golden Globe wins, one for Best Actress in a Drama, and one for Best Actress in a TV Movie or Mini-Series. She was further rewarded for her efforts by capturing the Oscar for Best Actress in The Queen.In the next year she appeared in the blockbuster sequel National Treasure: Book of Secrets, but in 2009 she starred opposite Christopher Plummer in The Last Station as the wife of the dying Leo Tolstoy. For her work in that drama Mirren garnered acting nominations from the Screen Actors Guild, the Independent Spirit Awards, and the Academy. Substantial roles continued to rack up honors and acclaim for the actress in 2010, as she played an intriguing role as a former Mossad agent in The Debt, and no-longer-retired secret agent in Red, and none other than the leading role in William Shakespeare's The Tempest - with the gender of the part changed to female. Mirren would then make a comic turn in the 2011 remake of Arthur alongside British comedian Russell Brand, before delving back into drama once more with the reflective 2012 film The Door.

Trivia: One of the leading actors of his generation and an important figure in world cinema, John Malkovich made the term "icy calm" his trademark. After winning acclaim for his characterization of the scheming Vicomte de Valmont in Dangerous Liaisons, he became associated with a series of roles that, to put it plainly, essentially required him to be an evil bastard.The product of a large, highly intellectual family, Malkovich was born December 9, 1953, in Christopher, IL. Initially a portly youth, he underwent a self-imposed physical transformation, emerging as a star high school athlete. He went on to attend Eastern Illinois University, where he originally aspired to be a professional environmentalist. With his friend Gary Sinise, Malkovich helped co-found Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre in 1976. Seven years later, he won an Obie award when the Steppenwolf production of Sam Shepard's True West was brought to New York. He next appeared on Broadway with Dustin Hoffman in the 1984 revival of Death of a Salesman; when it was transformed into a television movie a year later, Malkovich won an Emmy for his efforts. While he was working on Broadway, he made his film debut, playing a blind transient in Places in the Heart (1984), which earned him an Oscar nomination. He also had a starring role in The Killing Fields the same year.Although certainly capable of projecting warmth and pathos, Malkovich became best-known for his ice-water-in-the-veins roles. In addition to praise for his performance in Dangerous Liaisons, Malkovich won recognition -- and Oscar and Golden Globe nominations -- for his portrayal of the chameleon-like political assassin in Wolfgang Peterson's In the Line of Fire (1993). Other sinister Malkovich characterizations include Kurtz in the 1994 TV-movie version of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, the secretive Dr. Jekyll in Mary Reilly (1996), and Isabel Archer's dastardly husband in The Portrait of a Lady (1996). In 1999, Malkovich played what was undoubtedly his most unusual role -- himself -- in Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich. Both the subject of the film and one of its stars, he had the surreal duty of letting the film's other characters into his mind, something many audience members had no doubt been dreaming of doing for years. The film provided Malkovich's career with a sort of popular resurgence, and the following year found him essaying the role of a wild eyed F.W. Murnau in the dark horror comedy Shadow of the Vampire. The second feature by experimental filmmaker E. ELias Mehrige, Shadow of the Vampire took a magic realism approach to documenting the production of Murnau's legendary 1922 classic Nosferatu. In the years that followed Malkovich continued his trend of alternating roles in high-profile Hollywood fare with more artistically gratifying foreign films, and after turning up in the German miniseries Les Miserables (2000) and Je rentre a la maison Malkovich turned up opposite Vin Diesel in the box office flash Knockaround Guys (2001). In 2002 Malkovich picked up where Matt Damon left off in the thriller Ripley's Game before traveling back in time for the historical adventure drama Napoleon. After cracking up international audiences in Johnny English (2003), fans got to see Malkovich take on the role of a Stanley Kubrick imposter in the fact based Colour Me Kubrick. After a string of decidedly small films, Malkovich surfaced in 2005 in the sci-fi comedy blockbuster The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Based on the cult novel by Douglas Adams, the picture cast Malkovich as an alien guru and gave him a chance to flex some of his sillier chops. Subsequent roles in Art School Confidential, the Coen Brother's Burn After Reading, and Jonah Hex offered a bit of levity between performances in more serious-minded dramas like Disgrace and Secretariat, and on the heels of a memorable comic performance as an unhinged former assassin in the big budget action comedy Red, Malkovich could be spotted amidst an explosion of robot carnage in 2011's Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Maintaining his theatrical ties while tending to his successful film career, Malkovich appeared in the 1993 Broadway production State of Shock, and has periodically returned to Chicago to both act and direct in local presentations. For a number of years, he was married to fellow Steppenwolf alumnus Glenne Headly.

Trivia: Born on December 31, 1937, as the only son of a baker, Welsh actor Anthony Hopkins was drawn to the theater while attending the YMCA at age 17, and later learned the basics of his craft at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. In 1960, Hopkins made his stage bow in The Quare Fellow, and then spent four years in regional repertory before his first London success in Julius Caesar. Combining the best elements of the British theater's classic heritage and its burgeoning "angry young man" school, Hopkins worked well in both ancient and modern pieces. His film debut was not, as has often been cited, his appearance as Richard the Lionhearted in The Lion in Winter (1968), but in an odd, "pop-art" film, The White Bus (1967).Though already familiar to some sharp-eyed American viewers after his film performance as Lloyd George in Young Winston (1971), Hopkins burst full-flower onto the American scene in 1974 as an ex-Nazi doctor in QB VII, the first television miniseries. Also in 1974, Hopkins made his Broadway debut in Equus, eventually directing the 1977 Los Angeles production. The actor became typed in intense, neurotic roles for the next several years: in films he portrayed the obsessed father of a girl whose soul has been transferred into the body of another child in Audrey Rose (1976), an off-the-wall ventriloquist in Magic (1978), and the much-maligned Captain Bligh (opposite Mel Gibson's Fletcher Christian) in Bounty (1982). On TV, Hopkins played roles as varied (yet somehow intertwined) as Adolph Hitler, accused Lindbergh-baby kidnapper Bruno Richard Hauptmann, and the Hunchback of Notre Dame.In 1991, Hopkins won an Academy Award for his bloodcurdling portrayal of murderer Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. With the aplomb of a thorough professional, Anthony Hopkins was able to follow-up his chilling Lecter with characters of great kindness, courtesy, and humanity: the conscience-stricken butler of a British fascist in The Remains of the Day (1992) and compassionate author C. S. Lewis in Shadowlands (1993). In 1995, Hopkins earned mixed acclaim and an Oscar nomination for his impressionistic take (done without elaborate makeup) on President Richard M. Nixon in Oliver Stone's Nixon. After his performance as Pablo Picasso in James Ivory's Surviving Picasso (1996), Hopkins garnered another Oscar nomination -- this time for Best Supporting Actor -- the following year for his work in Steven Spielberg's slavery epic Amistad. Following this honor, Hopkins chose roles that cast him as a father figure, first in the ploddingly long Meet Joe Black and then in the have-mask-will-travel swashbuckler Mask of Zorro with Antonio Banderas and fellow countrywoman Catherine Zeta-Jones. In his next film, 1999's Instinct, Hopkins again played a father, albeit one of a decidedly different stripe. As anthropologist Ethan Powell, Hopkins takes his field work with gorillas a little too seriously, reverting back to his animal instincts, killing a couple of people, and alienating his daughter (Maura Tierney) in the process.Hopkins kept a low profile in 2000, providing narration for Ron Howard's live-action adaptation of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas and voicing the commands overheard by Tom Cruise's special agent in John Woo's Mission: Impossible 2. In 2001, Hopkins returned to the screen to reprise his role as the effete, erudite, eponymous cannibal in Ridley Scott's Hannibal, the long-anticipated sequel to Jonathan Demme's Silence of the Lambs (1991). The 160-million-dollar blockbuster did much for Hopkins' bank account but little for his standing with the critics, who by and large found Hannibal to be a stylish, gory exercise in illogical tedium. Worse yet, some wags suggested that the actor would have been better off had he followed his Silence co-star Jodie Foster's lead and opted out of the sequel altogether. Later that year, the moody, cloying Stephen King adaptation Hearts in Atlantis did little to repair his reputation with critics or audiences, who avoided the film like the plague.The long-delayed action comedy Bad Company followed in 2002, wherein audiences -- as well as megaproducer Jerry Bruckheimer -- learned that Chris Rock and Sir Anthony Hopkins do not a laugh-riot make. But the next installment in the cash-cow Hannibal Lecter franchise restored a bit of luster to the thespian's tarnished Hollywood career. Red Dragon, the second filmed version of Thomas Harris' first novel in the Lecter series, revisited the same territory previously adapted by director Michael Mann in 1986's Manhunter, with mixed but generally positive results. Surrounding Hopkins with a game cast, including Edward Norton, Ralph Finnes, Harvey Keitel and Emily Watson, the Brett Ratner film garnered some favorable comparisons to Demme's 1991 award-winner, as well as some decent -- if not Hannibal-caliber -- returns at the box office.Hopkins would face his biggest chameleon job since Nixon with 2003's highly anticipated adaptation of Philip Roth's Clinton-era tragedy The Human Stain, a prestige Miramax project directed by Robert Benton and co-starring Nicole Kidman, fresh off her Oscar win for The Hours. Hopkins plays Stain's flawed protagonist Coleman Silk, an aging, defamed African-American academic who has been "passing" as a Jew for most of his adult life. Unfortunately, most critics couldn't get past the hurtle of accepting the Anglo-Saxon paragon as a light-skinned black man. The film died a quick death at the box office and went unrecognized in year-end awards.2004's epic historical drama Alexander re-united Hopkins and Nixon helmer Oliver Stone in a three-hour trek through the life and times of Alexander the Great. The following year, Hopkins turned up in two projects, the first being John Madden's drama Proof. In this Miramax release, Hopkins plays Robert, a genius mathematician who - amid a long descent into madness - devises a formula of earth-shaking proportions. That same year's comedy-drama The World's Fastest Indian saw limited international release in December 2005; it starred Hopkins - ever the one to challenge himself by expanding his repertoire to include increasingly difficult roles - as New Zealand motorcycle racer Burt Munro, who set a land speed record on his chopper at the Utah Bonneville Flats. The quirky picture did limited business in the States but won the hearts of many viewers and critics.He then joined the ensemble cast of the same year's hotly-anticipated ensemble drama Bobby, helmed by Emilio Estevez, about the events at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles just prior to RFK's assassination. Hopkins plays John Casey, one of the hotel proprietors.Hopkins long held true passions in arenas other than acting - specifically, painting and musical composition. As for the former, Hopkins started moonlighting as a painter in the early 2000s, and when his tableaux first appeared publicly, at San Antonio's Luciane Gallery in early 2006, the canvases sold out within six days. Hopkins is also an accomplished symphonic composer and the author of several orchestral compositions, though unlike some of his contemporaries (such as Clint Eastwood) his works never supplemented movie soundtracks and weren't available on disc. The San Antonio Symphony performed a few of the pieces for its patrons in spring 2006.Hopkins would remain a prolific actor over the next several years, appearing in films like The Wolfman, Thor, and 360.Formerly wed to actress Petronella Barker and to Jennifer Lynton, Hopkins married his third wife, actress and producer Stella Arroyave, in March 2003.

Trivia: A graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts and winner of the Theatre World award for her performance in the Broadway production of Prelude to a Kiss, Mary Louise Parker has developed into the Mae Marsh of the 1990s: the eternal victim. Poor, put-upon Parker seems to have "kick me" emblazoned on her forehead in most of her screen appearances. However, unlike silent star Marsh, Parker's characters usually enjoy a satisfying "worm has turned" moment -- one of her first major film roles was as the abused wife in Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) A more self-reliant Parker was seen in the 1990 AIDS-related TV movie Longtime Companion, as the supportive "earth mother" to a group of urban homosexual men. Still, there's a foredoomed quality in Mary-Louise Parker's performances that can't be easily shaken. While her film career thrives, Parker is also busy on stage and occasionally television. Parker received a Tony nomination for her work in a Broadway production of Prelude to a Kiss. She also appears on productions all over the country. On television Parker appears in television movies such as Sugartime and Saint Maybe (1998).

Trivia: In 1991, won a national television talent competition held by KBS in South Korea, which led to his acting debut on the country's television series Asphalt My Hometown. Was a very popular actor in South Korea, appearing in numerous films and television shows for nearly 20 years before making his Hollywood debut in GI Joe: The Rise of the Cobra in 2009. Has modelled for the designer Karl Lagerfeld in both fashion shows and print adverts. Was named a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF. Attended the launch of the Unite for Children, Unite Against AIDS campaign for UNICEF in South Korea in 2006. Delivered a message of hope to victims of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in 2011 at the request of the Japan Committee for UNICEF. In 2012, became one of the first two Koreans to leave his hand and foot prints outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood alongside fellow actor Ahn Sung-Ki. Won the award for Best Foreign Actor at the 9th Huading Awards in Hong Kong. Became the first Korean person to present at the Academy Awards in 2016. Is the founder of BHNC, a fashion line that specialises in hats, scarves and other accessories.

Trivia: Both exotic and classic, Wales-born actress Catherine Zeta-Jones began acting as a child. By ten she was part of the Catholic congregation's performing troupe, and by 18 she was performing professionally in the West End. It was in there that she caught the eye of French director Philippe de Broca, who offered her the lead in his film Les 1001 Nuits in 1989. After traveling to France to film the movie, she returned to Britain, where she landed a starring role in the Yorkshire Television comedy drama series The Darling Buds of May, based on a series of novels by H.E. Bates. The show was a huge hit, and made Zeta-Jones one of the U.K.'s most popular TV actresses. After the series ended in 1993, she steadily found work playing lead roles in TV movies and miniseries such as Catherine the Great and The Cinder Path. She also played supporting roles small films, including Christopher Columbus: The Discovery and Splitting Heirs. The big screen role that undoubtedly put Zeta-Jones on the map, however, came in 1998 when she was cast opposite Anthony Hopkins and Antonio Banderas in 1998's The Mask of Zorro. America was enchanted by the dark-haired actress' charisma and beauty, and she began to be offered better and better roles in American film. She starred in films like Entrapment, The Haunting, and High Fidelity, before taking the prominent role of a white-collar drug kingpin's wife in 2000, in Steven Soderbergh's treatise on the drug war, Traffic. Her performance was impressive to critics and audiences, many of whom felt that she deserved an Oscar nomination.The actress had no time to quibble over awards, however, as she married actor Michael Douglas in November that year, and gave birth to their son Dylan Michael nine months later. Zeta-Jones' took it easy during the next year, appearing only in the romantic comedy America's Sweethearts, but her next project would be the one to cement her as Hollywood royalty: a starring role in the Broadway adaptation Chicago. Few fans were aware of the singing and dancing skills that she'd honed on the musical stage at the beginning of her career, much less that she had sometimes performed with the English National Opera. Her performance blew audiences away, and won her the 2002 Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Zeta-Jones lightened things up in 2003, making audiences laugh alongside George Clooney in the Coen Brothers' movie Intolerable Cruelty, then as an airport employee who falls for stranded immigrant Tom Hanks in The Terminal (2004).The actress' screen time, however, began to diminish at about that point, given her decision to shift priorities and hone in on raising a family with Douglas; her film appearances grew decidedly less frequent, and she thus found time to give birth to a baby girl named Carys Zeta Douglas in April of 2003. On the side, however, she continued to appear in occasional commercials, and the paparazzi often published candid photos of the actress in public, baby-in-arms, which held her in the limelight. The motion pictures in which Zeta-Jones appeared during this period took fewer chances by banking off of recent successes (gone, at least temporarily, were the challenges of such films as Chicago and Traffic). Efforts during this period included the blockbuster sequel Ocean's Twelve (with Clooney, 2004), the onscreen reunion with Antonio Banderas The Legend of Zorro and even the musical concert film Tony Bennett: An American Classic, which reunited Zeta-Jones and Chicago wunderkind Rob Marshall.In 2007, she teamed with Shine director Scott Hicks for an Americanized remake of the German-language comedy Mostly Martha, retitled No Reservations. She followed that up with Australian director Gillian Armstrong's period piece Death Defying Acts -- a cinematization of Harry Houdini's 1926 tour of Britain, co-starring Timothy Spall and Guy Pearce, and scripted by Brian Ward and Tony Grisoni. Zeta-Jones returned to the musical fold in Rock of Ages, a 2012 adaptation of the 2006 Broadway show. She next took on several supporting roles, in films like the sports rom-com Playing for Keeps, the psychological thriller Side Effects and the action sequel Red 2.

Trivia: A square-jawed blonde with steely blue eyes, actor Neal McDonough had essayed every role from psychopath to dunce before roles in HBO's Band of Brothers and Minority Report (2002) found him gaining a reputation as the man to cast if a script called for a dependable, all-American tough guy. Though his screen presence has been growing steadily in the first years of the new millennium, it wasn't long ago that McDonough was considering abandoning his career as an actor. A native of Dorchester, MA, easygoing McDonough attended Barnstable High School before graduating from Syracuse University and later training as an actor at the London Academy of Dramatic Arts and Sciences. Taking to the stage following his graduation, it wasn't long before McDonough was appearing in such productions as Waiting for Lefty and A Midsummer Night's Dream, and in 1991 he took home a Best Actor Dramalogue Award for his role in Away Alone. McDonough began his move into film with a minor role in 1990's Darkman, and the same year appearances in such popular television series as China Beach and Quantum Leap ensured that his face would remain a familiar one to audiences. Following a turn as Lou Gehrig in the 1991 made-for-television feature Babe Ruth, McDonough's television career began to take off, and through the mid-'90s he found frequent work on the small screen with the exception of such features as Angels in the Outfield (1994). A childhood dream came true for the lifelong Star Trek fan when he was cast in the Star Trek: First Contact (1996), and that same year McDonough voiced Dr. Bruce Banner in the animated television series The Incredible Hulk. His career shifting increasingly toward feature work in the late '90s, McDonough took on memorable roles in such features as Circles (1998) and the quirky pseudo-horror film Ravenous (1999). Though the frustration of never receiving a truly gratifying role caused him to reconsider his chosen career, McDonough's big break was just around the corner. Cast as 1st Lt. Lynn "Buck" Compton in director Steven Spielberg's acclaimed HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, McDonough's role as the troubled soldier who suffers a nervous breakdown in the chaos of war finally gave the actor a chance to flex his chops and caught the attention of series producer Spielberg, who immediately approached him for a role in Minority Report. Cast as the best friend of Tom Cruise's character, McDonough was now a recognizable Hollywood figure and was quickly developing a solid screen persona. Subsequently returning to the small screen for the television series Boomtown, McDonough was cast in the role formerly occupied by Jimmy Smits, who dropped out at the last minute. As McDonough began preparation for roles in Timeline (2003) and Walking Tall (2004), it seems as if the dependable actor might finally be edging toward leading-man status. Though that may not have been the case when McDonough accompanied his onscreen brothers into the woods to expose the skeletons in the family closet in the 2005 drama American Gothic, a more amiable turn as a dedicated friend attempting to help his best pal find a man to father her child in the comedy drama Silent Men went a long way in making the actor a bit more likeable to viewers. The following year McDonough could be seen treading water opposite Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher in the Coast Guard drama The Guardian. He continued to work steadily in a variety of films including Clint Eastwood's Flags of our Fathers, The Hitcher, I Know Who Killed Me, 88 Minutes, and Traitor. In 2008 he joined the cast of the successful ABC drama Desperate Housewives in that program's fifth season.

Trivia: First role was the mother-in-law in a school production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Offered a role in a series that filmed in Los Angeles, he turned it down and recommitted to stage acting in London. Was engaged in long-standing prank with Judi Dench in which they tried to hide a black glove in each other's productions. Played both Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson at different points in his career; also wrote two children's books about the Baker Street Irregulars. Awarded the Order of the British Empire for his acting shortly before his death.

Trivia: Studied acting at the Actors Conservatory of the Canadian Film Center in Toronto.The director who cast him and Heidi Hawkins in the Shakespeare play As You Like It, where they met, officiated their wedding.Was invited by Matt Goldberg to audition for an improv comedy troupe and became a founding member of Uncalled For.With Uncalled For, toured the U.S. and Canada.In 2015, won the Montreal ACTRA Award for Best Videogame Performance for his work in Assassin's Creed: Unity.